Hey, fellow literature lovers

imasinger

Fri, Mar 06 2015, 5:22 pm

This is what we put in with our MM this year. Want to play our game?

A Literary Purim

This wintry Purim, we have a strong desire
To curl up with a book and a warm fire;
And, lo, and behold, when we took a look
We found Megillah hid in many a book!
So, see the story, as retold on these pages
By literary giants through the ages.
And here’s a game for those who stay the course;
For which of these quotes can you tell the source?

SOURCES:
a) Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
b) William Blake, “Songs of Innocence”
c) Robert Browning, “Last Ride Together”
d) Robert Burns, “To A Mouse”
e) Robert Burton, “Anatomy of Melancholy”
f) Willa Cather, “Song of the Lark”
g) Samuel Coleridge, “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”
h) Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
I) Emily Dickinson, “No. 1176”
j) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
k) Robert Frost, “Tree At My Window”
l) W.S. Gilbert, “Iolanthe”
m) James Joyce, Ulysses
n) Franz Kafka, “The Great Wall of China”
o) Martin Luther King, Jr.
p) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Cross of Snow”
q) John Milton, L’Allegro
r) Alexander Pope, “Essay on Criticism”
s) William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Henry V, King Lear, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet
t) Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Charge of the Light Brigade”
u) Henry David Thoreau, Walden
v) Walt Whitman, Passage to India
w) William Wordsworth, “Lucy”

Chapter 1:
1. With pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry
2. Have we not grovel’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
3. It is too rash [sic], too unadvised, too sudden.
4. Oh, gracious, why wasn’t I born old and ugly?
5. Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.

Chapter 2:
6. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
7. This Child I to myself will take
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.
8. You speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
9. Remain sitting at your table and listen… The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked…
10. The best laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft agley.

Chapter 3:
11. Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes
Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses
12. Never, never, never, never, never!
13. It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age
Someone had better be prepared for rage

Chapter 4:
14. Did you say all? … All?
What! …. At one fell swoop? ”
15. I have full cause of weeping
16. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
17. All pray in their distress
18. Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die

Chapter 5:
19. But mercy is above the scepter’d sway
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings
20. Come! The game is afoot!
21. And yes I said yes I will Yes.
22. The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.
23. I tell you there is such a thing as creative hate!

Chapter 6:
24. In the long, sleepless watches of the night.
25. What might’st thou do, that honor would thee do
26. Sing, riding’s a joy! For me I ride
27. Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never failing vice of fools.

The Rest of the Story:
28: That would hang us, every mother’s son
29: In a word, the world turned upside down
30. We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies
31. Unearned suffering is redemptive.

Post your guesses, and I'll give you the answers in a little while! Smile

zaq

Fri, Mar 06 2015, 5:33 pm

Sheer genius!

LittleDucky

Fri, Mar 06 2015, 5:57 pm

Genius.
6 is jane Austin, pride and prejudice.

cinnamon

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 12:20 pm

Absalutly brilliant!

imasinger

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 7:06 pm

LittleDucky wrote:

Genius.
6 is jane Austin, pride and prejudice.

Right. That was the one that started me on creating this game; I was looking at the megilla, and that quote came to mind.

You have to know some of the midrashim we've spoken of here to pick up on my little humor about Vashti's face and Esther's skin color.

BetsyTacy

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 7:52 pm

#22 is Coleridge--we memorized a nice chunk in 9th grade.

BetsyTacy

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 7:57 pm

#18 I think is from Charge of the light brigade.
I know "one fell swoop" is Shakespeare--leaning towards either Macbeth or Hamlet.
This is taking a lot of self restraint not to google the answers.
Still looking for Sherlock Holmes, because I think I should know that one....

imasinger

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:05 pm

Very good, Betsy Tacy! (I loved those books, too).Right on all counts.

If it helps, the part I left outbefore "one fell swoop" was "O hell-kite! All? What! All my little chicks and their dam?" I wasn't sure some moms would approve their kids coming and saying, "mommy, is imasinger putting swear words in?"

I think you will figure out the Sherlock Holmes one. Try reading the quotes aloud, and it will probably become clear.

Last edited by imasinger on Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:51 pm; edited 1 time in total

BetsyTacy

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:14 pm

Besides (rereading) P&P, Holmes is the only piece on your very intellectual list that I have read in years.
I am consoling myself with the thought that you must have majored in English, to have compiled such a reading list.

I recognize the mice and men, stand not upon the order of your going, the beware of new clothes...
I hope I am not embarrassing myself, but I could envision Sherlock saying #20 ..come the game is afoot.

gp2.0

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:16 pm

Ooh how clever! Some of these sound so familiar but I'm not having luck matching them up...the following make me think shakespeare but I don't know which play:

5. Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.

Rubber Ducky

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:21 pm

10. The best laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft agley.

Robert Burns

Rubber Ducky

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:27 pm

22. The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge

sequoia

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:34 pm

Never mind

Last edited by sequoia on Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

imasinger

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:34 pm

Right, Rubber Ducky.

And Betsy Tacy is right about the Sherlock Holmes one.

Yes, I did major in English literature. But I confess, I used a Bartlett's to help me with this game.

Gp2, you are right about the Shakespeare. If it helps, it is not the same play as the line about the "green girl."

But it is the same play as "one fell swoop."

Last edited by imasinger on Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

Rubber Ducky

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:37 pm

27. Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never failing vice of fools.

Sounds like Emily Dickenson

BetsyTacy

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:39 pm

Okay, we need some English majors here. I was not an English major, but we must have some who have read some Shakespeare sometime in the past 20 years..... Think, think think!

sequoia

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:39 pm

Oh Macbeth then

BetsyTacy

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:41 pm

How about dumb luck is #26 Last Ride Together?
If we don't submit more guesses, imasinger won't tell us the answers!
(Can you tell I'm enjoying this plus am totally procrastinating on Shabbos cleanup?)

imasinger

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:43 pm

Sequoia, I had hoped you would play!

I only used English writers, as I always think there is a possibility something may get lost in translation from writers in other languages.

Rubber Ducky, the Emily Dickinson follows a similar rhyme scheme to #27, but is not in iambic pentameter.

sequoia

Sat, Mar 07 2015, 8:44 pm

Is 30 Emily Dickinson?